Laywomen and the Making of Colonial Catholicism in New Spain, 1630–1790

Argues that laywomen's interactions with gendered theology, Catholic rituals, and church institutions significantly shaped colonial Mexico's religious culture.

Jessica L. Delgado (Author)

9781107199408, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 August 2018

294 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2 cm, 0.56 kg

'Scholars of colonial religious history will find much to admire in this book.' Brian R. Larkin, Bulletin of Spanish Studies

In the first history of laywomen and the church in colonial Mexico, Jessica L. Delgado shows how laywomen participated in and shaped religious culture in significant ways by engaging creatively with gendered theology about women, sin, and guilt in their interactions with church sacraments, institutions, and authorities. Taking a thematic approach, using stories of individuals, institutions, and ideas, Delgado illuminates the diverse experiences of urban and rural women of Indigenous, Spanish, and African descent. By centering the choices these women made in their devotional lives and in their relationships to the aspects of the church they regularly encountered, this study expands and challenges our understandings of the church's role in colonial society, the role of religion in gendered and racialized power, and the role of ordinary women in the making of colonial religious culture.

Part I. Introduction. Troubling Devotion: Laywomen and Religious Culture in New Spain: 1. Sacramental learning
2. Public and scandalous sin
3. Ambivalent witnesses and local inquisitions
Part II. Introduction. Places and Practices of Cloister: 4. Cloister for the poor and virtuous
5. Cloister for the unruly and unhappy
6. In the convent but not of it
Epilogue: laywomen making colonial Catholicism.

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], History [HB]